POLICY & ETHICS

Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden
We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now

Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in its 175-year history. This year we are compelled to do so. We do not do this lightly.

The evidence and the science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people—because he rejects evidence and science.

[OCS: This is a bald-faced lie that is not backed by any evidence or science. One need only to consider that President Trump conferred with experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and repeated what he and his other experts explained. The record will show that Dr. Fauci and others have put forth false and misleading information, some of which have oscillated between opposing positions.

As for damaging the United States, one must realize that it was the governors of mostly Democrat—governed states that were caught flat-footed and unprepared for the pandemic they were warned was coming. It was President Trump that bailed them out of trouble by providing the necessary materials, facilities, and personnel that they pleadingly requested.

It is a fact that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo killed thousands of individuals with his insane policy of housing Covid-positive patients in facilities with large numbers of senior citizens, those who were most vulnerable to the virus.]

The most devastating example is his dishonest and inept response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which cost more than 190,000 Americans their lives by the middle of September. He has also attacked environmental protections, medical care, and the researchers and public science agencies that help this country prepare for its greatest challenges.

[OCS: While President Trump was closing our borders to individuals traveling from virus-infected areas on January 31st, a move the Democrats labeled as racist and xenophobic, an unmasked Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was urging people to mass in San Francisco’s Chinatown on February 24th and assuring them it was safe to visit in large numbers. She was not wearing a mask and was followed by a dense gaggle of individuals and leg-humpers.

If one needs to assign blame for dead Americans, it needs to be the Communist Chinese and their lack of transparency that allowed the virus to morph into a global pandemic, the state governors who were unprepared to meet the demands of medical care, and those who promulgated insane public policies while claiming they were backed by the "science."

As for Trump’s criticism of researchers and public science agencies, it was well deserved. The World Health Organization served as a propaganda agent of the Communist Chinese. The Centers for Disease Control initially distributed bad virus test kits and the FDA placed artificial restrictions on laboratories that could process the test kits. And while Trump may have criticized individuals and organizations for poor planning and performance, there is no evidence that any of his official policies caused the deaths of any Americans. Again, the Democrats do not like his rhetoric and his Tweets, but that is not proof of malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance.]

That is why we urge you to vote for Joe Biden, who is offering fact-based plans to protect our health, our economy and the environment. These and other proposals he has put forth can set the country back on course for a safer, more prosperous and more equitable future.

[OCS: First, candidate Biden does not possess the cognitive ability to articulate, explain, and defend any of the policies proposed in the Democrat Party’s 110-page manifesto, which is a radically un-American and communist manifesto likely to wreak havoc on the United States’ military, economy, culture, and the wellbeing of all Americans.

Second, While Biden and the Democrats dithered in the early days of the Pandemic, concentrating on impeachment and not the health and welfare of American citizens, it was President Trump who took decisive action. Sometimes, overriding the experts who claimed the travel ban was unnecessary --and, if he had followed their nonsensical advice, would have cost thousands of Americans their lives.

And third, given the same scientists and institutions available to the President, there is no evidence that a Biden Administration could do any more than what was already done. In fact, after listening to the Democrats, it is likely that hundreds of thousands of Americans would have died.]

The Pandemic would strain any nation and system, but Trump’s rejection of evidence and public health measures have been catastrophic in the U.S. He was warned many times in January and February about the onrushing disease, yet he did not develop a national strategy to provide protective equipment, coronavirus testing or clear health guidelines.

[OCS: The intellectual dishonesty of this assertion is astounding. It was the duty of the states to provide for their citizens. In many cases, budgetary matters trumped the replenishing or renewal of outdated or depleted medical supplies. There is no constitutional duty for the federal government to serve as the supply depot for the states. As for testing and guidelines, again, we see the experts and their organizations that failed American citizens – not President Trump. Many of the systemic failures originated with the Obama Administration that failed to handle the much smaller SARS virus and stockpile the necessary supplies.]

Testing people for the virus, and tracing those they may have infected, is how countries in Europe and Asia have gained control over their outbreaks, saved lives, and successfully reopened businesses and schools. But in the U.S., Trump claimed, falsely, that “anybody that wants a test can get a test.” That was untrue in March and remained untrue through the summer. Trump opposed $25 billion for increased testing and tracing that was in a pandemic relief bill as late as July. These lapses accelerated the spread of disease through the country—particularly in highly vulnerable communities that include people of color, where deaths climbed disproportionately to those in the rest of the population.

[OCS: Tracing works with small populations under controlled circumstances. New York maintained an operational transit system without special precautions, and testing and tracking these people would be both ineffective and a bureaucratic nightmare – especially if one found asymptomatic spreaders.

This is not a sexually transmitted disease with a finite number of contacts. The lack of testing and tracing is almost immaterial to the broader population. If anything, it should have been applied to workers coming and going in senior citizens' and other healthcare facilities. While Trump’s assertion that anyone could get a test – it was the experts that limited the testing to first-responders and healthcare workers. As for presidential lies, it certainly did not rise to the level of Obama’s “You can keep your doctor, period!” falsehoods.]

To read the rest of this hyper-politicized drivel on behalf of the radical progressive socialists and their useful idiots, it can be found at here.